Chapitre 27: An Expected Battle
"Military leadership is a journey, not a destination."
"It is continually challenged and must continually prove itself against fresh obstacles."
There is satisfaction in defeating an enemy."
"But one must not allow oneself to become complacent."
"There are always more enemies to be identified, faced, and vanquished."
Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars.
…..
"You can't be serious! We lost half of our knights in the last battle!"
Bardornus cried out angrily before calming himself down and letting out a depressed sigh at the report he was given.
'I knew that committing my knights would lead to casualties amongst them but losing half before we have even fought against their main force….'
'That's a great loss! Despite our combined forces outnumbering the Chavarians, losing a large amount of our cavalry, especially our heavy cavalry, on the first day does not bode well for the future battle.'
While thinking about how to approach the coming battle, the middle-aged general looked over to his green-skinned, fur-covered ally, worried about any more upcoming skirmishes as he had seen firsthand how the orc army was not made for the vast flat Alendel Steppe, which favors cavalry-based armies which is why both the Chavarians and the Plurians will generally bring more cavalry than infantry if they can afford it and have enough of horses available.
Glancing at the rest of the report made him take in a deep breath, but it was the number at the bottom that indicated the total casualties sustained by both armies, which made the middle-aged man cringe, his mind becoming a mess for a second.
'25,000-30,000!'
'That's ¼ of our army! How the fuck did we lose ¼ of our army before both sides' main forces have met.'
Bardornus complained, not used to such hit-and-run tactics being effective as, in most cases, the horse archers doing them would be damaged the most as they would be shot by their enemies who would set up a shield-based formation and without a significant technology gap between the two sides and without the protection of a shield wall the horse archers would find themselves being picked off one by one by the enemy archers who would hide safely behind the shield wall of the heavy infantry in front of them.
'I suppose these tactics will only work against the orcs, but when they make up 70% of our army….'
'Then suddenly, these tactics become the most dangerous for us!'
Bardornus thought, getting a headache from trying to find ways to deal with the inevitable skirmish that he had predicted would occur.'
'Chances are we will have to fight the moment we try to set up camp to no way the Chavarians will allow us to set one up unmolested.'
'Why do I have to have such a useless ally.'
'If I give our crossbows to the orcs, then that leaves us without them to scare away the Chavarian horse archers, who will quickly turn to attack us instead.'
Bardornus was contemplating a solution to this issue until a lightbulb turned on in his head, and he came up with an idea to deal with the situation.
'Why didn't I think about this before!'
"Get me the quartermaster here now!"
Bardornus shouted to the soldiers around him.
…..
After one more hour of marching, the ground underneath the allied army began to shake violently as the rumble of thousands of horse hooves thumping against the slightly damp ground made it to the allied army. The faces of Bardornus and Wurgoth, one leading the Plurian army, the other the Otruian orcish army, both frowned at the same time, becoming serious as one thought crossed both their minds at the same time.
'Godamnit, not again! Can't we get a break!'
In the distance, the red and black Chavarian army got closer and closer, their metal armour glinting brightly in the sunlight which reflected off the steel plates as they rode towards the orcs and leaving the Plurians alone, well aware that their weapons were of far better quality than the orcs while the Plurians were armed in a similar manner to Chavarians making them the much thornier target to attack not to mention the much larger cavalry that the Plurians possess will make an attack against them much more costly.
Even worse for the orcs was the annihilation of half of their heavily armoured spearmen that happened the night before meant the orcs were left with only a few thousand of the once 10,000-strong spear-armed heavy infantry; the rest had already been delivered into the icy cold hands of death.
Leon looked over the orc formation and was slightly surprised by how well-organised it was. The orcish commander seemed to have learned from the large number of casualties sustained in the last battle and understood how ineffective the short bows his men had equipped were. The formation he set up was completely different from the one that Leon faced the previous day, the only similarity being the line of metal-clad orcs, which created a wall of shields to protect themselves from ranged attacks and on a cart behind the lines, Antimagic Crystals were activated preventing any magic from being cast on both sides the magical formation made the day before leaving a noticeable impression on the commanders of the Plurian Otruian allied army.
At the front of the formation was a line of armoured orcs wielding large shields, swords, and axes; behind were what looked like leather-armoured skirmishers' javelins sticking out of their backs like mini flagpoles safely protected by the shield wall made just in front of them by the first line of orcs. Behind the skirmishers were orcish archers clutching a mixture of bows. However, from how far Leon was, he noticed little difference between them, the bulky wood denoting the difference between a thinner curved short bow and the more well-framed composite bow.
Behind them at the back of the orcish formation were the pikes, their long steel points ending just in front of the first line of orcs to help deal with the knights if they tried to charge through the orcish formation due to the orcs losing a large portion of their anti-cavalry capabilities over the skirmishes and raids fought in the previous day. With the pikes at the rear of the formation were the light infantry and the remaining spear-armed orcish heavy infantry.
'Seems they have improved; shame I don't need to attack this formation head-on. Time to go take a detour, then.'
Leon thought, yawning, slightly tired from having less rest time than everyone else in the Chavarian army however, in the short term, this would not affect his fighting prowess due to being used to fighting all day and into the early hours of the morning. Seeing Plurian banners of a proud white lion standing on two legs, roaring in defiance on the right side of the Orcish formation, Leon led his men around the left side of the formation towards where the remaining orcish wolf riders were.
By the time the Chavarians had finished their skirmish, arrow filled green skinned bodies were littered across the steppe wolves and horses lay dead on the floor with a mixture of cut, stab and arrows wounds covering their bodies as their blood soaked the ground into a crimson colour.
The battle was hard fought. The first victims were the wolf riders, who were relentlessly attacked and harassed by the Chavarian horse archers turning some of them into porcupines until they decided to move around to the right flank where the Plurian army was. Only the perceived strength of Wurgoth, the orcish commander who gave a direct order not to engage, prevented the wolf riders from succumbing to their anger, being baited and destroyed by the Chavarian cavalry, who were trying baiting them into attacking them and planning to use the 4,000 knights that accompanied this skirmishing force to crush them eradicate the wolf riders and with them any cavalry capability of the Orcish army.
After giving the order, Wurgoth knowing that the Chavarians could now attack the left flank and rear of his formation without any opposition, and knowing that, unlike the front of the formation, the rear did not have a screen of shields to protect the soldiers as there were only some smaller shields from the light infantry and a small shield wall of a few thousand heavy infantry which was between the archers and pikemen and the sharp steel arrows of the Chavarian horse archers. As such, the orc general immediately sent a request for help to Bardornus, who he hoped would help him and work with his remaining wolf riders to fight off the Chavarian cavalry, or it would be Wurgoths exposed rear, which would feel the full force of the Chavarian horse archers who would slowly pick his off orcs one by one until there was nothing but arrow filled corpses remaining.
Bardornus saw the movements of the Chavarian force and immediately knew what they were aiming for and was slightly frustrated that it only took 5 minutes of looking at the Orcish army's formation for the general leading the force to pinpoint the weaknesses in the orcish formation.
'No formation is perfect after all.'
The Plurian general thought to himself, and, even without the request for help, he ordered Alden to lead the Plurian horse archers and light cavalry to help protect the now exposed left flank of the Otruian army, knowing that whether the orcs wanted them there or not they would be needed.
Thanks to the quick speed of the orders given by Bardornus, the request for help became only one of courtesy as Bardornus had already sent out his men to help, this also lowered the amount of time the 7000 Chavarian horse archers had to freely harass the rear of the Otruian army as the supplies wagons for the Allied army was now protected by the Plurians who had their heavy infantry and deadly crossbows watching over them as the wooden wagons creaked slowly through the slightly damp steppe. Remembering last night and the sight of crossbow bolts piercing through the necks of the Chavarian knights, Leon decided against attempting to attack the allied armies' supplies, worried about the damage the Plurian crossbows were capable of giving out knowing that he needs to preserve as many men as possible.
It was also here that the surprise that Bardornus planned with the permission of Wurgoth, whose eyes shined brightly when he heard it, appeared, leading to a small cloud of iron arrows fired from composite bows to crash into the Chavarian horse archers killing a few hundred who were concentrating more on hitting their enemy feeling safe with the knowledge that even if the orcs aimed at them, their short bows would never reach them. This surprise made Leon's eyes widen in surprise slightly for a second before they narrowed in concentration, wondering where the orcs had acquired the composite bows from the extra power the bow gave, allowing them to punch through the horse archer's armour with greater ease.
Due to many of the Plurian horse archers dying the previous day and the battlefield being left by the Chavarians for the allied army to scavenge, the Plurians quickly found many of the bows dropped by their fallen comrades adding up to nearly 2000 composite bows and threw them into their supplies as spares for their men to use if a bow broke for any reason.
At Bardornus' command, these bows were given to the orcs to use.
This helped to solve the biggest problem that the orcs had, which was in their inferior equipment and predicted that the Chavrains would use what they learned in the previous day's battles and aim for the Orcish army trying to kill as many as they could before they managed to get to the battlefield to confront their main army.
For an hour after the allied army had deconstructed their camp to move it closer to the Chavarians, the middle-aged man racked his old brain for anything that he could do to help the orcs out with the technological gap between them and the Chavarians it was then that remembered the bows and decided to give them to the Orcs to help make up for their lack of advanced weapons.
The Chavarian horse archers had begun by firing on the orcish pikemen needing 3-4 arrows to fell one of the muscled orcs, but when a few hundred of the horse archers died to the orcish archers wielding composite bows, they quickly changed their targets and spread out into a looser formation to help disperse the arrows. This is something that the orcs could not do, or it would give the battle-hungry Chavarian knights the opening they needed to create chaos and carnage within the Otruian ranks.
Lumbering behind the orcs was the massive fur-covered giant-sized orc resting his human-sized spiked club on his shoulder, the arrows fired into him seemed to have no effect, barely piercing through his thick tree trunk-like arms and muscles and unable to do much damage to the tissue below. Using his giant hands, he removed the tiny arrows from his body, the usually deadly steel arrows becoming merely an inconvenience for the large orc.
The few thousand heavy spearmen at the back and light infantry were unable to defend the archers and pikemen, who numbered collectively to over 10,000, so they did the best they could; the light infantry, despite having the numbers, could barely defend themselves from the deadly accurate Chavarian horse archers and so could offer little help to their comrades. But this still led to thousands of arrow-filled lifeless orcish bodies falling to the ground, each lifeless husk an intelligent being, each with their own family and friends who care about them but destined to become another number on an Otruian casualty report.
The Chavarian horse archers quickly ignored the large lumbering beast-like orc who would never catch them. Instead, they focused on the lightly armed archers who were now capable of fighting back even if the continuously moving Chavarian horse archers would lower casualties taken by the Chavarian.
The battle continued like this, the orcs losing far more men than the Chavarians, whose legendary cavalry mowed down the orc archers like grass until the heavy infantry from the front of the formation arrived sweat stricken and made a shield wall in front of the archers however seeing this, Leon just moved his men to the other side of the formation where the large shields held by the heavy infantry would not get in the way of the Chavarian arrows and continued his harassing thoroughly infuriating Wurgoth who complained loudly at the cowardly tactics of the Chavarians.
This also frustrated the reinforcements who had just made it to the rear of the orcish host only to see the men that they had come to fight head back to the front where there was no orcish heavy infantry.
After another 30 seconds of firing, the Chavarains retreated away from the orcish host, Leon being happy with the damage done to the orcs to face the Plurian reinforcements backed up by what remained of the orc's wolf riders, the remaining Plurian knights being kept back so they could be used in future fights.
The next cavalry fight was much more demanding on the Chavarians as the two sides clashed, the horse archers firing at each other. However, it was just over 6,000 Chavarian horse archers against the Plurians, with half that number, it did not take long for the weight of numbers to show its weight as both were equally skilled and led to far more Plurians dying than Chavarians as 3,000 arrows are far less effective than 6,000 arrows. Alden and Leon kept each other in check dueling for the whole fight neither exchanged pleasantries as spear and halberd clashed the metal sparking off each other as Leon slowly got the upper hand as the fight went on Alden while a master was far less experienced than Leon who closer to the grandmaster level than he was.
The veteran Chavarian knights clashed with the Plurian light cavalry and Otruian orcish wolf riders of the armour and training of the knights leading a relatively even fight as even though the knights were outnumbered, they were much better fighters, each being the veteran of a hundred battles as they skewered their enemies with their lances or cut them with swords. Some of the black-red-plated knights fell though each one a great loss to the Chavarian army, three javelins lodged in their flesh as their horses fled or died with them. Others were killed by the large axes wielded by the orcish wolf riders, though in most cases, even with the strength of the orcs, the curved blade of the iron axes struggled to break through the steel-plated and mailed knights.
The lighter cavalry was slightly better off using their maneuverability and lighter armour to run rings around the knights throwing javelins one after another however, while some of the knights died, the effect was not substantial as the knights, after fighting on the steppe for years the elite Chavarian knights were used to defending themselves from projectiles coming from mounted enemies.
After 10-15 minutes of fighting, Leon called for a retreat still unable to kill Alden who was stubbornly holding on still able to go on if only barely, bodies of both human and orc scattered around like fired shotgun rounds. It was not that he was losing; on the contrary, the Chavarains were fairing well. The Plurian horse archers retreated after losing half their number, not wanting to be completely destroyed. However, Leon noticed that more and more horse archers were entering melee due to running out of arrows and saw the main infantry of the two armies approaching where the cavalry battle occurred; as such, he ordered a retreat, a smile on his face due to the large amount of damage he had done to the allied army.
Seeing the retreating figure of the Chavarian force escape into the distance, both Wurgoth and Bardornus let out a sigh of relief as Bardornus ordered his men, who had not fought in the skirmish, to start burying the bodies of the dead, their blood forming little pools and streams as it painted the ground crimson.
About 30 minutes before coming to their campsite, only 1 hour from the main Chavarian camp on its hill, a familiar man made their way towards the allied army Wurgoth recognised the cunning man as Gerindin, the servant of Lindorus, who provided the allied army with information in the past.
"I request to speak to Wurgoth! I have something important to tell him!"
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
LaziestDragon
LaziestDragon Sorry for the slightly late chapter, this one is longer than most others and took quite a lot of time to edit.
For those wondering yes I will use quotes from other works that I like though mostly when I think it fits well.
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The next chapter is scheduled for next weekend.
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